Popular singer, Aliaune Damala Bouga, better known as Akon, has denied calling out Twitter Chief Executive Officer, Elon Musk, over the blue tick subscription fees.
The Senegalese-American had tweeted that Musk was “forcing” people to pay the Twitter verification fee that was created to protect accounts from fake ones, insisting that he won’t pay for the new Twitter blue subscription.
Musk had disclosed that from April 1, legacy verified users would have their blue ticks removed from the service unless they paid the $8 a month subscription fee for Twitter Blue while organisations pay $1,000 a month.
The PUNCH reports Musk had removed the verification badge of international media outlet, New York Times, over failure to pay the subscription fee.
“Back in the day, Twitter was begging musicians to stay on cause they don’t have traffic. They came up with a verification process to protect accounts from take ones, now @elonmusk is taking that away and forcing us to pay- FYI, I’m ain’t paying shit for something we helped build.”
Akon’s deleted tweet read
Quoting a screeenshot of the deleted tweet on Tuesday, the “Lonely” crooner disclosed he was not behind the tweet, noting that his account was hacked.
He tweeted, “My account was just hacked. This tweet didn’t come from me. Whoever hacked my account, please keep your personal opinions away from my profile respectfully.”
Recall that in November, 2022, Twitter announced plans to charge $19.99 for the new Twitter Blue subscription.
The blue subscription is one the company’s most controversial projects since Musk’s $44 billion takeover of Twitter on April 14, 2022.
